FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 2002-34
STOCK PROMOTER WHO OBSTRUCTED JUSTICE IN SEC ENFORCEMENT ACTION SENTENCED
TO 17 1/2 YEAR PRISON TERM
Washington, D.C., March 12, 2002-The Securities and Exchange Commission
announced today that Sidney Wade Sers was sentenced to 17 1/2 years in
federal prison for obstruction of justice, contempt of court and money
laundering charges related to an SEC enforcement action. Sers was convicted
of concealing $800,000 in Cayman Island bank accounts, in violation of court
orders stemming from the SEC action.
In Dec.1997, the SEC charged Sers and Trinity Gas Corporation, a publicly
traded company he controlled, with bilking hundreds of Trinity investors out
of over $11 million in an illegal "pump and dump" scam-a scheme in which a
company's share price is "pumped up" through false representations before the
shares are "dumped" by the scam's promoters at illegally and artificially
inflated prices. On Dec. 9, 1997, the U.S. District Court of Fort Worth, Texas,
entered a temporary restraining order against Sers and his company and froze
their assets. The following month the court continued the asset freeze and
directed Sers to repatriate funds to the United States.
The day the Commission filed suit, Sers transferred $800,000 he obtained from
sales of Trinity stock to the Cayman Islands and subsequently fled the country.
From Jan. 1998 until his arrest, Sers was a fugitive hiding in Colombia.
Colombian authorities detained Sers on Nov. 21, 2000 and deported him to Miami,
Fla., where Sers was arrested by the F.B.I.
"This criminal sentence underscores the SEC's resolve to pursue criminal
prosecutions against deliberate wrongdoers and those who interfere with the
Commission's law enforcement activities," said Harold F. Degenhardt, District
Administrator for the SEC's Fort Worth, Texas office.
In 1999, the U.S. District Court in Fort Worth entered a summary judgment in
favor of the Commission and ordered Sers to disgorge $11,607,442, representing
his profits from the unlawful scheme. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Sam R.
Cummings of Lubbock, Texas, sentenced Sers to prison and ordered Sers to make
restitution of the same amount.
The criminal case was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's office for the Northern
District of Texas (Lubbock Division). An SEC attorney was appointed Special
Assistant U.S. Attorney to assist in the criminal prosecution, and an SEC
accountant testified at the sentencing hearing. Additional information can be
found in Litigation Release No. 17409 (March 12, 2002); No. 16386 (December 10,
1999); No. 15627 (January 28, 1998); 15582 (December 8, 1997).
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